Business
Environmental stewards urge paint recycling
Published 11:26 PDT, Tue September 22, 2020
Last Updated: 2:13 PDT, Wed May 12, 2021
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With fall officially here, so too is the long-standing tradition of cleaning out basements and garages.
Product Care Recycling, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to environmental stewardship, is urging locals that residential paint can be recycled. There are four locations across Richmond, including Regional Recycling - Richmond where it can be dropped off free and be disposed of in an environmentally-friendly manner.
“Recycling leftover paint products gives them a second life instead of adding to landfill waste,” says Rachel Nelken, communications manager at Product Care Recycling. “After paint is dropped off at a recycling location, it’s transported to Product Care’s paint plant in Delta for processing. Paint is then sorted by quality and type (water-based, oil-based, or aerosol) and then used for producing new paint with recycled content, concrete manufacturing, and energy recovery.”
Several types of household paint products can be recycled, including indoor and outdoor paint, primer, wood finishing oils, and varnish. Visit Product Care’s website for a full list of accepted products. Since 1994, Product Care has diverted more than 82 million litres of paint from Canadian landfills—enough paint to flow over Niagara Falls for 26 seconds. BC recycled nearly three million litres of paint last year.